#2 Bathroom Reno: Our Inspiration Photos and Ideas!

It helps so much to go through magazines and look online for inspiration photos. I saved our images in a folder in Pinterest so that I could access them easily. We knew that we wanted to turn the toilet to face the sink area, which would mean that the cabinet couldn’t be quite as deep. That’s where this design came in handy. Loved the brass accents for mirror and hardware, but since we were going with chrome shower hardware we opted for a chrome faucet as well. I think this looks beautiful and functional. We changed ours up a bit to work for us… Originally we were going to have a vanity and a tall cabinet for storage. After deciding what we would actually be storing (not that much) we decided against the tall cabinet and came up with this plan (the banjo). Couldn’t be happier!

Vanity Design – Harrison Woodwork, Edisto, SC

We showed our contractor the image of the vanity. We wanted to change a few things, instead of open shelves we wanted drawers and doors on the cabinet. The vanity width is 3′ and the banjo (less deep section) is 2′, giving us a nice 5′ slab of marble and plenty of room! The banjo area is 14 3/4″ deep (vs. 21 3/4″ for the rest of the vanity) which is perfect for storing plenty of items!

Sarah Miles at Tile & Stone Design Studio, along with our contractor, Peter Malanos (Arcadia Construction in Charleston, SC) made selecting tile and marble a very easy process. There are so many to choose from. Originally this slab was on hold and while we were waiting on receiving another image it then became available. We liked it because it had more white and less dark veining. We knew we wanted to use Subway Tile (4×6″ glossy white)… and marble on the floor – we were unsure whether to tile floor to ceiling in just the shower or in the entire bathroom. In the end we decided on the entire bathroom. Like I mentioned, it’s good to have someone who has built many bathrooms and gone through many renovations to help guide you towards what would give you the look you’re going for.

Carrara Venato Marble Hexagon Honed 2″ Mosaic Tile

I took this photo of our floor tile, Carrara Venato Marble Hexagon Honed 2″ Mosaic Tile – it’s beautiful! We took a chance with the floor tile because we asked if there was an option for ordering online. If you have a big budget, then stay with the local people, they can send you an image of what your exact tile will look like. Since marble is a real stone it can be very different, sometimes with tans and sometimes dark veining, other times more white with subtle lighter grey colors. We took a chance, and lucked out! The tile was beautiful, and I can’t tell you how good it feels on bare feet!

Not pictured are some larger (6×12″) Carrara marble subway tiles that were used. Using the larger marble tiles (instead of subway tile) on the curb to the shower and the bottom shelf of the niche gives it a more elegant appearance and it also means less grout lines).